What is drawn butter?

Search: drawn butter

Why: In the Lemondrop article "Let Them Eat (Wedding Cake) - Why Prop 8 Made Me Believe in Love" by [Redacted] Guy:

My friend loves a wonderful man who loves him back. But they can't get married in Maine. Many opponents of same-sex marriage point to the Bible as the backbone of their argument. You know what else the Book of Leviticus says, Maine? It says eating shellfish is an abomination. Time to take off those lobster bibs and put down your pails of drawn butter.

I have probably eaten a lot of drawn butter in the many years since I told my parents I wanted lobster for dinner on my 3rd birthday, but I don't even know what it is.

Answer: It's a sauce! Duh. But Practically Edible wants to make it clear that drawn butter and Drawn Butter Sauce are two different things:

Drawn Butter Sauce is not the same as drawn butter (aka "clarified butter.") In fact, it doesn't even use drawn butter.

Some restaurants might appear to be confused now. Where you would have at one time been served Drawn Butter Sauce with your lobster, now you might be served just melted butter (not even "Drawn aka clarified Butter"), which they'll say is "Drawn Butter." It sounds pricier than melted butter, which, after all, could be just butter left out in a hot restaurant kitchen too long.

Anyway, it's made of this:

• Butter
• White flour
• Water
• Lemon
• Salt
  
• Pepper
• Maybe scallions or something
  

Or maybe Maine serves their lobster with clarified butter. Who can be sure? I only went there once to go outlet shopping, and since it was the off-season, we ended up at a shack that only served fried stuff.

Source: Practically Edible, Thirty Simple Sauces, Cookin' with Carolyn

The More You Know: The word butter comes from Latin butyrum, from the Greek boutyron meaning "cow-cheese" (bous "ox, cow" + tyros "cheese"). Mmm!